[Bwonsamdi]

I am a lurker and don't have a account or comment on Hacker News.

Sublime is created by a small software shop and they need money to run the shop while Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar company. Microsoft can afford to give away free software for some goodwill from developers.

Its kinda a unfair comparison.

[jpeeler]

It is unfair. However, unless you have a principle of ignoring freely (free as in beer and code in this case) released software from bigger companies it's a comparison that will be made.

PS - I understand what you're saying, but I thought it was funny you claimed you don't have an account on a website that requires registration for commenting. Welcome to HN!

[Philipp__]

I hope that you are aware that VSCode is not free software.

[jpeeler]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're confusing the release binaries with the source?

https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium#why

[bishala]

99% of the end users only care about the product, not how the developers are making ends meet.

[blackfawn]

I can appreciate their need to charge but the $80 for personal use is rather prohibitive. It is a bit odd they differentiate a personal and business license yet charge the same for both. I'd buy a copy for personal use if it was more reasonable since I do like how it works but I just stick to xed for simple editing and IDEs like vscode for more in-depth work instead.

[Veen]

$80 is a lot for personal use, but how many personal users actually pay it? It's not difficult to ignore the occasional nag message, so people who can't or don't want to pay aren't forced to.

[helij]

That just looks a lot for personal use. I know people who click on a message and spend that kind of money each month for coffee during lunch break.

For me personally, that price is nothing. I would pay twice as much and each employer had to buy it if they wanted me happy in text editor regard.

[ethelward]

Is $80 that much for something that you use oh so often?

It's roughly one week of food where I live; so not free, but something I would afford if it brought a net improvement to my work.

[blackfawn]

To be honest... yes, it is rather much. You are in the price range of full fledged IDEs, whole operating systems, and office suites just for a text editor, even though it is quite a good one. As the sibling comment mentioned, I'm sure many personal users just use the unregistered version to the point that they'd probably make quite a bit of extra revenue if they offered a more attractive price point for those users.

On a separate note, a friend described their backwards approach of validating licenses on every launch of their app, which creates a de facto 'telemetry' system since license hash is submitted to their servers and they obviously have access to other info such as IP.

So even though I quite like the software, I've discontinued use due to the high cost and also due to the inability to opt out of external communications that'd allow them to keep tabs on you and your usage. To be fair, I was not keen on Microsoft's telemetry in vscode but that can be disabled and even better, vscodium removes it completely.

[guessmyname]

> I've discontinued use due to the high cost […]

I’ve given away 30+ SublimeText licenses in the last 5 years, mostly to students.

If you cannot afford paying $80 for a license, ping me via email and I’ll buy one for you.

My email is 0x636978746f7264732f61742f676d61696c I’m looking forward to talk with you.

[nicoburns]

Hex encoding your email address is genius. Don't think many spammers will be picking that one up!

[mises]

I didn't believe he was serious, but he is. He actually delivered.

[blackfawn]

That is quite generous but I don't know that it'd sit well having someone else pay for me for what I consider too much to use. I suppose it's all just my principles since I could just use it in an unregistered state as many personal users likely do. I like supporting software like this... I just can't justify the cost, particularly since it's just for my own use.

[florin_g]

I've requested a license and received one within minutes. There's nothing more honorable than keeping your word! Awesome and thanks!

[nodesocket]

I have been wanting to buy a license to get rid of the license nag pop up, but wasn’t sure if development was ongoing since it had been quite a while since the last release. Also, I figured Sublime Text 4 might be coming down the pipeline soon.

If I buy a license, does that cover potentially upgrading to the next major version? If not, is there a roadmap for version 3?

[awran5]

You are a Genius and Honest, Thank you man :)

[Vanderson]

I think $80 is very reasonable for a great tool like Sublime (for work) if it suits your needs.

[zerr]

It's more than a monthly salary in many places.

[jimjimjim]

A $5 coffee is more than a monthly salary if you pick the right places.

[mobilemidget]

One of my previous employers, millioniar (in euros), was too cheap to buy a license... Myself, 1/10000 of a millionaire bought several licenses, one for myself and a few for internet coding friends

Expensive is very much subjective

[geodel]

Monthly salary of software developer?

[zerr]

I meant in general. Just to highlight that there are different perspectives of what that amount really means to some people.